April 27, 2006

Daffydils Are Not The Only Flower

Stupid daffodils live for exactly 15 days!. They look like de-odorized narcissi that ate too much junk food, and got fat and wobbly, and died prematurely. I am as disappointed in them as I have always been in the verbose man who loved them, and forced them down our throats since we were kids. Never trust a man who writes a prelude to an epic and then realises the prelude is an epic in itself. Here’s my double revenge against Will Wordy and his stupid yellow friends:

I wander’d lonely as a cloud(All the while blabbering aloud)That floats on high o'er vales and hills,(And, like me, with precipitation kills)When all at once I saw a crowd,(Their protest against me was loud)A host, of golden daffodils;(En-jaundicing fields and window sills)Beside the lake, beneath the trees,(Like me, causing universal unease)Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.(Bringing the audience to its knees)Continuous as the stars that shine(Invoking much exasperation Divine)And twinkle on the Milky Way,(Speaking so much with nothing to say)They stretch'd in never-ending line(Much like the poetry I call mine)Along the margin of a bay:(Killing a hundred students everyday)Ten thousand saw I at a glance,(Not one of them has the slightest chance)Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.(And writing suicide notes in advance)The waves beside them danced; but they(Are loud enough to drown my lay)Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:(At having successfully ignored me)A poet could not but be gay,(And write an epic from March to May)In such a jocund company:(Here even rhyme forsaketh me)I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought(And hence my verse is ill-begot)What wealth the show to me had brought:(And chiefly of verbal diarrhoea wrought)For oft, when on my couch I lie(And dream of paper molested by dye)In vacant or in pensive mood,(One that never did anyone good)They flash upon that inward eye(The blind one that nothing doth espy)Which is the bliss of solitude;(And, may I add, annoyingly rude)And then my heart with pleasure fills,(And from these pages the ink then spills)And dances with the daffodils.(And murders people against their wills)

I have enjoyed Will Wordy's 'Daffodils' without an idea of how they looked. When I moved to his home country recently, and saw Daffodil buds in the supermarket, I brought a bunch home to see what it was he was writing about. (I need not have bothered, they were all over the town on the roadside in a few days). When the flowers opened in a few days, they brought such a bright splash of colour to my steel, grey and white kitchen! They brought a smile to my face everytime I went in. But I thoroughly enjoyed your absolutely irreverent and wicked humour. I know exactly which poet I will remember when the Daffodils pop up again next April! Poor Wordy!